That's a strong endorsement by Belichick. He could have done his normal thing and said that he only talks about players on the roster. Instead he goes on a tirade about how great Vinatieri is. Vinatieri should be blushing.

And he's right. If you ask me, Vinatieri does belong in the Hall of Fame. He had the kicks that turned a franchise.

If you want to say he's still just a kicker, well I disagree. He was more than that. He was truly a star in New England while he was here. Honestly, the dude was doing commercials, and still does sometimes. What other kicker does commercials? Do you see Dunkin Donuts clamoring to get Gostowski to be a sponsor? Nope.

Vinatieri is a legend and he definitely deserves a spot in Canton. Like Belichick says, what else was he supposed to do?

Oh, also, Belichick hates the Hall of fame. Here's his tangent on that.

"I don’t know what Hall of Fame means. There are guys who have great, long careers. There are other guys with very short careers in the Hall of Fame; from championship teams, there are guys that never or hardly ever played on winning teams. There are guys with personal stats, there are guys with I’d say less personal stats but maybe more championships or more longevity.

"I don’t know what the criteria is for the Hall of Fame, I’m not in any position to be honest with you. That’s something you’d have to ask the Hall of Fame committee or voters or something like that, because I don’t really know what the criteria is. I don’t know if it’s ever been defined. I don’t know if it’s a popularity contest or if it’s a political thing. I don’t know what it is. It’s hard for me to believe that. as great as this game is, that there are no punters and one kicker in the Hall of Fame.

"We can argue that they only play ‘X’ number of plays and everybody else plays a different number of plays but they’re still significant players at their position. Again, what the criteria is for them, I don’t know. I think you’d have to ask somebody else. I have no idea, other than the Hall of Fame and they’re all, I’m not saying they’re not deserving. I’m saying what one guy does, what another guy does, what their careers were relative to all of it, different things we’ve talked about, I don’t see any consistency.

"Say, ‘OK, they met these three criteria. They need to meet three of the next six criteria.’ Whatever it is, I don’t know, but I don’t see that. You have to talk to somebody who knows a lot more about that than I do. I don’t understand it."